No Smoking (2007)

Directed by

Anurag Kashyap

Genre

drama film, horror film, neo-noir

Country

India

Runtime

2h 08m

Rated

A

Rating

6.9 of 10 from 77 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A wealthy chain smoker named K joins a rehabilitation center to quit smoking and save his marriage. The center's leader, Baba Bangali, pulls him into a strange and controlling scheme that makes quitting far more complicated than he expected.

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What happens

No Smoking is a 2007 Indian Hindi-language black comedy thriller film written and directed by Anurag Kashyap, and produced by Vishal Bhardwaj. The film stars John Abraham, Ayesha Takia, Paresh Rawal and Ranvir Shorey. The first Stephen King Hindi film adaptation, it follows K (Abraham), a wealthy, proud, chain smoking businessman, who agrees to quit smoking to save his marriage, and visits a rehabilitation centre to assuage his wife (Takia) and childhood friend (Shorey), only to be caught up in a labyrinthine plot by Baba Bangali (Rawal), the all-knowing man running the centre, who guarantees that he will make him quit. Combining story ideas from Ram Gopal Varma, Raj Singh Chaudhary and "Quitters, Inc.", Kashyap pitched the film to Abraham, who wanted to work with him, and Bhardwaj, who wanted to produce for him, both of whom accepted. Principal photography took place in Dharavi, Kutch, Bandra, Dongri, Mumbai, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia. Bhardwaj also composed the music, while the lyrics were written by Gulzar. The film's themes include freedom, privacy, surveillance and censorship. No Smoking premiered at the Rome Film Festival on 24 October 2007, before its general release on 26 October. The film received negative reviews and bombed at the box-office, grossing ₹3.49 crore (equivalent to ₹11 crore or US$1.1 million in 2023) against a budget of ₹7.50 crore (equivalent to ₹23 crore or US$2.4 million in 2023). However, at the 53rd Filmfare Awards, it received two nominations, and has since gained a cult following. Abraham has repeatedly expressed interest in a sequel. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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